“The coals which were his guardians…”: the hermeneutics of Heraclius’ Persian campaign and a faint trace of the “last great war” in Zoroastrian literature

Book section : Chapter

This article discusses the desecration of the Sasanian fire temple complex of Ādur Gušnasp (‘Fire of the Stallion’) at modern Takt-e Solaymān (‘Throne of Solomon’) in Iranian Azerbaijan (Atropatene) at the hands of Heraclius in 624 CE and the reception of this symbolically laden military-political event in Zoroastrian literature in ‘Book’ Pahlavi or literary Middle Persian. The article first presents the Greek and Armenian historical sources on the destruction of the shrine in 624 CE followed by a brief survey of the archaeological and material remains at Takte Solaymān. It then presents the Pahlavi literary sources on the mythical and theological importance of the Ādur Gušnasp and proceeds to argue that Zoroastrian hermeneutical literature reinterpreted the Old Avestan texts, namely the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti (Yasna 35–41), through complex forms of eisegesis, thus retro-reading a prophecy of the fire’s desecration at the hands of malevolent individuals back into their ancient scriptures from the 2nd millennium BCE. Ultimately, these fugitive passages not only serve to highlight the incomprehensible loss of this central icon of Sasanian imperial religion but they also suggest a rich world of lost Persian responsa to the ‘Last Great War’ of Late Antiquity.

Authors: Vevaina, YS-D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance
• Host title: Mélanges James Howard-Johnston
• Pages: 467-490
• Series: Travaux et mémoires
• Series number: 26
• Place of publication: Paris
• Publication date: 2022-01-01
• Edition: 1
• ISSN: 0577-1471
• ISBN-10: 2916716874
• ISBN-13: 9782916716879
• Language: English
• Subtype: Chapter